The Dance of Well-Being
Posted May 10, 2012
What in this life makes you feel well? What gives you a sense of your own wholeness, that feeling of abundance, flow, integration, alignment, satisfaction, nourishment and connectedness? These are at least a few of the things that factor into my own personal sense of well-being and there are truly an infinite number of diverse ways to tap into that well. We can access it by writing, by singing, through prayer and meditation, by putting attention on what we eat, on how we move, on who we touch and who touches us, on how we sex, how we love, what we say, who we listen to, and where we choose to put our attention…and one of my favorites, dance.
Dance is a place I feel free. But it’s also a place I can feel where I am not free & embrace that too. It is place where I go to meet myself.
“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”
Martha Graham
Through dance I can feel and “speak” my longing, my sadness, my joy, my anger, my gratitude, my arkwardness, my passion and my power. Dance can be a vehicle for profound self-connection, self- expression and on either side of that song and dance, a personal transformation.
“May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
In Journeydance, the conscious dance form I teach, we are invited to return to being the river. All the energy that is in us is given a chance to find ground in our bodies, to experience expansion and expression as we take up more space, and to move through the places of awkwardness, insecurity and resistance within us to find a sense of freedom and wholeness and acceptance. A Journeydance does not go by without a transformation, without something that was hidden from us being revealed, without something that was obstructed finding its flow again, without something that we’ve rejected finding forgiveness and embrace. It is always the invitation to listen to our soul's speak, without forcing or holding ourselves back.
Care to dance?
For the next community dance experience, visit my home page for details about Authentic Woman: A Four Week Series for Women starting Monday June 25th.
Shadow & Light
Posted February 1, 2012
She was driving me crazy! I mean I just could not tolerate her energy. It was frustrating because I’ve always thought of myself as a loving, compassionate, inclusive person, yet I could not for the life of me find room for this woman. I found her to be clingy, needy, lost & excessively attached to being included & simply could not stand being near her. Inside I was screaming get away from me! Outside I was pushing her away & dismissive. I was resisting her with all of my being until it finally hit me. I realized there was not going to be any getting away, because there is no escaping our shadow.
Needy is indeed what has lurked in the shadows of my being. It’s the part I’ve always made sure not to be. I always valued my self-sufficiency and independence. I never sought help unless I paid for it. I fed my unacknowledged needs with food. In school I always kept myself on the in crowd. I made sure I was popular. I figured out how to be liked. People would want to be in with me! I would never have to feel my desire to fit in, my need to belong or feel included because I would make sure I was the one they were trying to fit in with.
Truth is that I am all the things I couldn’t stand in her. I’ve come to get to know this part of my whole self even more so in my recent marriage. I have witnessed my desperation to be included. My need to be needed has caused me to cling where I feel utterly lost until you let me know that & how I belong. I feel completely dependent on external validation.
I’ve run from this shadow long enough. It has now come into the light of my awareness & though it hasn’t always felt good, here’s why it’s worth the sudden realization that we are that which we can’t stand or even despise. As Thich Nat Han says, I am pointing to myself. When I saw her neediness was my own, I suddenly found room for her. Like a mother to a child, I said to myself, it’s okay. Instantly what had been driving me crazy became a vehicle for love, compassion, & attention. Where I pushed her away I welcomed her in. I stopped fighting her neediness & embraced it as I am doing for myself. I can’t even begin to describe the look of joy on her face when I invited her to participate where I had previously been leaving her out. The wildest part is that as soon as I did that she ceased to cling. She just wanted to feel she had a place, that she was needed & belonged as all humans do, including me. I could grant her that because I became willing to accept that in myself.
It’s funny how it’s exactly what we keep in the shadows that has the power to light up the world.
·
- Consider someone or some attribute you can’t stand in the world. Maybe it’s someone’s bitchiness, their softness, their anger or judgment or neediness, etc.
- Dare to look & see how that trait exists in you & notice how you’ve masked it.
- Identify something positive or useful about that quality.
- Share what you see in yourself with a friend.
- See how you can embrace that quality in yourself like a loving parent. You’ll know you have when that person or attribute no longer ruffles you. You may even find yourself loving & appreciating it!
What do you need? Why being selfish is a good thing!
Posted January 3, 2012
A theme for 2012 has become clear to me as I declare this the year of knowing what I need. It’s not about just knowing what my needs are but also honoring those needs. It sounds simple, but I’ve noticed in both my life & for others that so often when a concern or upset is consuming us, there is some need that we have either failed to identify or failed to honor. And by needs I’m referring to what we need to be healthy, to be of service, & to flourish in our relationships, with self & others, in our careers & in relationship with all our life’s desires.
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that in order to avoiding being selfish, we must put other people’s needs ahead of our own, that selfishness is a bad thing. The irony is that we end up being of most service when our needs are handled, not necessarily to the exclusion of others but never to the exclusion of ourselves. And many times when our needs are not being met or acknowledged we will rebel in anger, resentment, dissatisfaction, or reactivity, which of course never serves anyone. Even our bodies will show signs when we are disconnected from our needs through the appearance of various symptoms. Additionally, the upside for others when we act “selfishly” rather than “selflessly”, when we provide others with a service or something they need is that everyone can be clear that we are doing what we’re doing for ourselves, our own needs, so nobody owes us anything! The giving is free & clear and never comes back to bite you.
Back to our needs, the truth is that sometimes, even if our needs are not or cannot be met in a certain situation, our awareness of what those needs are can evoke compassion & empower us to better communicate our needs and make choices from a clear, centered & self-connected place. For instance when we see that behind an upset is a need for love, connection, inclusivity, purpose, appreciation, respect, self-expression, support, etc, our upset might make more sense & we might feel compassion for our humanness. We can find strength in being aware, connected, & responsible to our needs rather than bemoaning a world that appears to threaten or hasn’t met them. It works the other way too. When you’re feeling great, if you reflect on all the needs that are being handled to generate such a sense of wellbeing it becomes clear, our needs are the cornerstones for our happiness.
My husband Sam Gedal, a sensuality life coach (www.livinginpassion.net) has always talked about the freedom of surrender, specifically how the greatest surrender is not to the needs & desires of others, but to ourselves, to our desires & the needs that support us in manifesting our dreams & help us make our unique difference in the world. And I’ve always loved this quote, “when people take care of themselves, everything else gets taken care of.”
This year I’m proposing the awareness and honoring of our needs as a worthwhile path for peace, fulfillment & happiness. I’m giving it a whirl, and invite you to do the same.
· The next time you are feeling some kind of upset or breakdown see how many needs you can identify underneath your concerns. Ask yourself what needs are not being met and name them.
· Embrace the needs themselves & love yourself for having them.
· Communicate them to the people in your life.
· And look at what choices and agreements best handle your needs being met.
· Get to know your needs before the upset by noticing what needs are being satisfied when you are feeling really great.
· And the next time you do something for someone else, identify the need you are meeting for yourself by doing that thing, recognizing they do not owe you for your kindness, generosity or service.
Personal Responsibility: Who is going to make the life you want happen?
Posted December 27, 2011
It’s amazing to me how we, as a culture & individually, are still looking for that magic pill that will make us have the body, health, relationship, self-esteem, & life in general that we want. We’ve continued to defer responsibility for our wellbeing to experts, to medicine, to the whim of another’s attention, to anyone but ourselves. What if it’s been in us all along; the power to create the lives we want? It may actually be the hardest pill to swallow that no one is going to make it happen for us, yet that is the very ticket to our freedom, power & joy.
This post is about PR, personal responsibility. No one can represent you in creating the life you want but you. When we hand the switch to our lives & happiness over to circumstances; to whether or not the guy calls back, or the bakery around the corner is open or closed, or the yoga class schedule fits ours, or the chance validation arrives in our inbox, we are forever at the whim of forces outside of ourselves. Sure sometimes that may feel good, but when we come to rely on that, we are more often than not left feeling frustrated, inadequate, less than, & powerless to feel the way we want.
A client who I recently coached was feeling deeply disempowered, undesirable, un-cool, and quite tortured by the waxing and waning of affections from a certain male friend. When I asked her what the effect on her was, of giving him the switch to her self-perception, she at first stated the obvious; it feels miserable! Upon deeper inquiry though she was able to admit the pay-off was that it felt easier to put it in his hands than her own. She didn’t have to take responsibility for how she felt about herself, her hotness or sexiness or pleasure. He could determine that for her. Essentially she was being lazy! No judgment here, just honesty. But when she noticed that if she took back the reins to her self-perception & her capacity for self-pleasure she didn’t need his validation anymore. It’s not that she couldn’t enjoy his company or affections, but they would be part of her design, her desires & her vision for a life full of pleasure, sexiness & happiness.
I noticed the same thing in myself a couple of months ago in relationship with my husband. When his attention was being focused on something other than me I’d get angry at him, but it was actually my laziness and failure to take my desire for affection, love, warmth, friendship & attention into my own hands. I’ve since been nourishing myself with not only his love, but also spending more time with my friends & am even hosting a cuddling party in a couple of weeks. Once we call ourselves out on our laziness & start to take responsibility for having the lives we want, life can become so huge. I’m no longer limited to having things on the terms of a single object of my attention, but life expands to encompass the wide range of all the world has to offer.
This is true in the realm of health and fitness too. When I put my attention on more than the damn scale & modern measurements of beauty, the temptations of the food industry & how hard it is to cook for myself or workout, the miracle starts happening. As soon as I got connected to my desire for health & how I wanted it to look & feel, I was on it. When I stopped complaining about it not being fair that this area of my life needed attention & saw I could create a life of health & wellness that suits me & my strongest desires, I was in action. I hired a health coach, returned to overeater’s anonymous & scheduled my first massage in months!
Here are a few steps to recovering your PR (personal responsibility):
1. Name your top complaint or frustration.
2. Notice to whom or what you’ve given the keys to your happiness. (Be compassionate & love your lazy self here!)
3. Get back to what really matters to you. Identify what you really want in the area of that complaint.
4. Drum up a way to handle your PR in that area.
5. Get in action in that area in any way, large or small.
6. Notice the satisfaction you feel from recovering the reins to your life in that realm.
7. Do it again.
Instead of waiting for the world to buy your theories about how hard or unfair or impossible life is, try selling yourself on the idea that the life of your dreams, from health to love to pleasure & self-esteem is in your hands & start seeing how much fun you can having playing with the world & all the ways it can support you in realizing your biggest desires.
|
